The Assam unit of the Congress has urged Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal to quit the Bharatiya Janata Party and form an alternative government with its help, The Hindu reported on Tuesday. The Opposition party’s statement came amid speculations of a rift between the Bharatiya Janata Party and its regional allies over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
The bill, a pet project of the BJP, aims to make certain crucial changes to the Citizenship Act of 1955. If passed, it would make undocumented immigrants – Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains and Parsis – from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh eligible for citizenship. It would also ease the terms of naturalisation for individuals from these groups.
“It is high time Sonowal speaks up against the Bill to assure people he is still their Jatiya Nayak [national hero], a title given after he took the lead in getting the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act of 1983 scrapped by the Supreme Court,” Time8 quoted Debabrata Saikia, the Congress Legislature Party’s chief, as saying on Tuesday.
Saikia added: “If Sonowal leaves BJP, along with others in his party, against the Bill, the Congress will give unconditional support to any alternative government he forms.”
He also said the Congress was confident that other parties such as the Asom Gana Parishad, one of BJP’s allies in the state, would join them. The Asom Gana Parishad has threatened to pull out of the coalition government in protest against the Bill.
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